First I want to discuss another important event: the finale of Red vs Blue Season 10. It was amazing, and tied up a lot of the story lines. The connection between the present and past storylines was flawless; I don’t think anybody saw it coming that the blue ODST from a few episodes back was Butch Flowers. However, there are still some loose ends for Season 11 to pick up on, the Sarcophagus and the Councilor being two.

I guess I should also discuss the promotional web movie Forward Unto Dawn. It was about as close to a Halo movie as anyone could wish for, and seeing the game universe expanded was great. Despite some cinematographic errors, the story was top-notch and the movie contained numerous nods to the books. Plus, they had a space elevator collapse! Actually, the lack of destruction following the collapse was disappointing. Other than that, the only failure was the massive gaping plot hole: why would the Covenant stage a ground invasion rather than just glass the planet? I would have forgiven them if even a slight mention was in that regard, but zilch was explained.

But on to the actual game. I’ll admit, I don’t actually own the game. I’ve played it for maybe 7 hours total. But being an avid fan of the franchise in general, I definitely have some thoughts.

I played about a quarter of the singleplayer campaign. It upheld the themes and style of the previous games, but expanded into awesome new areas. I’m not sure how I feel about the introduction of living Forerunners, or the new story with the Mantle and the war between humans and Forerunners, with humans being devolved at the end. Still, I loved the gravitation towards background lore: from AI rampancy to Dr Halsey to Forerunner shield worlds (Ghosts of Onyx, anyone?), the book references were awesome. Even little details, like the decompression sequences at the very beginning or the zero-gravity on the outside of the ship, were exquisite. I don’t get Promethean weapons, though. Why do they pop apart?

The multiplayer aspect was pretty similar to Reach’s, although I was bummed at the removal of multi-seat flyers. The falcon and hornet were some of my favorite vehicles. However, the ability to fly a pelican pretty much makes up for the loss. I remember in Halo Custom Edition playing maps like Coldsnap and Extinction. Getting your entire team in a scarab, or longsword, or pelican was an absolute blast. As for the Mantis, it seems a little gimmicky and unbalanced; it doesn’t really fit with the Halo theme.

Forge was better than ever with item duplication, locking, and magnet snapping. I’m not sure how I feel about the new “forgeworld” map. In any case, by far the most interesting addition was that of Dominion. This game type is basically a dumbed down version of Power Struggle from Crysis 1. You capture bases by securing their terminal, and then stick around to reinforce the base with energy shields. You can construct auto-turrets and pop-up cover around the base, and build new vehicles. Every 15 or 30 seconds a new power weapon drops at the base. In order to win, you must accrue points by keeping control of bases.

I can’t wait to see what gets done by people regarding Dominion, and the new Forge tools in general. Still waiting for the ability to add AI, though.

As brought up by Penny Arcade, 343 Studios not only had to make a game as good as its predecessor; Halo 4 had to be the best game of the franchise. I think they came pretty close to doing so. So, if I believed in giving number ratings, which I don’t…

Most games portray you as a hero of some sort. A common trope is for the hero to be either inexperienced at the beginning of the game, or lack his equipment. This gives a reason for why the hero does not just plow right up to the main baddie and kill him at the beginning. In any case, a lot of games suffer from a strangely shaped difficulty curve. The game starts out fairly easy as the player learns the ropes, then the enemies get harder. Finally, you max out your stats and the game begins to get easier again.

Granted, the best games suffer from this less, but a lot of games have trouble with this type of power creep. Spore is a prime example of a ridiculously easy endgame (the space stage was essentially a sandbox). Some developers solve this by making enemies more powerful as the player progresses. This can work in games where, for instance, the enemy starts to realize just how much of a threat you are. In open-world games like Skyrim, though, this makes little sense.

Yahtzee, of Zero Punctuation, mentioned in one of his Extra Punctuation an inkling of an idea for a game that is designed with this problem in mind. I have taken the liberty of gripping the nebulous concept by the horns and fleshing it out.

The game is based around the power suit you wear. It is a magnificent piece of High Technology. Unfortunately, this means that nobody is quite sure how it works. The machining of the piece is much too fine to replicate, in any case, which means any replacement parts have to come from other pieces of High Technology, which are few and far between.

At the start of the game you escape from the main fortress of the Bad Guys with some sort of Valuable Item (perhaps information). You raid the armory and steal the suit before plunging yourself deep into the wilderness around the citadel. You spend the game running from a cadre of pursuers, trying to make your way to the border. At every encounter with an enemy, it is up to you to protect your suit as much. Each blow is physically simulated and, depending on where you place armor, where the hit was, how hard it was, etc. a component on your suit has the potential of breaking. Parts also wear down over time.

The most critical part of the game is deciding how to keep your suit in working order. Some systems are critical, like the pneumatics that let you move (damage to arm parts may impair aiming speed, damage to legs may reduce speed or jump height, etc), and some are dispensable, like weapons. If a critical system receives a hit and becomes in critical danger of breaking down, you have to stop and either fix it with any spare parts you find, or scrap a non-critical system on your suit to get the essential parts.

This meta-game with the suit solves the problem of power creep. You are at maximum power at the beginning, but enemies are also at the greatest density. Slogging through the wilderness and fighting enemies wears your suit down, so by the end you are barely limping along. As time goes on, you have to choose which weapon or system to scrap for parts. This means that you get a sample of all abilities at the beginning, and can keep the ones that best suit your play style. One of Bioshock’s biggest problems was that there was no incentive to try new plasmids. I’m sure the majority of players just improved the starting set, because buying new powers was too much of a liability.

I like the idea of having the game being mostly free-world. You can choose the best path through the different types of terrain to avoid encounters. Cold environments, wet environments, and sandy environments all have different types of wear and tear on the suit. Roads are easy to traverse (meaning less food consumption and lower likelihood of suit failure) but are more likely to find troops on them. Towns and other population centers are more likely to hold supplies (food and maintenance items are critical for survival) and spare parts, but the citizens will raise the alarm if they see you, and there are likely to be troops in towns.

The catch is that any alarms you raise will alert the search parties to your general presence and means a higher chance of encountering troops. Same goes for any military engagements in which an enemy scout or survivor escapes. The game is part stealth (avoiding conflict), part tactics(managing the suit, choosing your world route), part combat (winning conflicts you get into). At the end, instead of a boss fight, you have a final battle at the border of the kingdom as the search parties converge on your position and a friendly militia comes down from the other side of the border to help you across.